England's lack of intent assured us of Vizag triumph: Kohli

Visakhapatnam [India], Nov.21 (ANI): Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli has pointed out that it was England's lack of intent in the second innings that assured them of victory in their massive 246-run win in the second Test at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam here on Monday. Chasing a mammoth target of 405 runs, the Alastair Cook-led side went down like a pack of cards and were eventually bundled out for 158 after battling hard for 97.3 overs. England were earlier bowled out for 255 runs in reply to India's first innings' respectable total of 455. Ravichandran Ashwin and Jayant Yadav took three wickets each while Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammad Shami took two-two wickets each in the second innings. While speaking in a post-match press conference, Kohli was critical of England's second-innings performance and said that his side were expecting a high-class defensive batting from the visitors. "We thought they would come out with more intent, to be honest. And to see them approach that they had obviously gave us assurance that once we get a couple of wickets, it will crumble pretty quickly because there wasn't much intent from the batsmen," said Kohli. However, the only positives in England's second innings was the opening 75-run stand between skipper Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed, who dug in for 50.2 overs to provide their side with some fight back. India did manage to break the opening partnership late on the fourth day when Hameed was dismissed lbw by Ashwin, and then Jadeja removed Cook in the final ball of the day. Kohli believes that it was a test of their patience and they managed to overcome it successfully. "It was a test of our patience. We knew that they are going to try and annoy us by playing like this and hope that we lose that our cool, bowl with different plans and do too many things, which we did not. We maintained a similar field throughout. It's just that in the last over, the suggestion came from [Cheteshwar] Pujara that we could try probably a different field, have two more on the leg side and make him really defend well in the last six balls. Put a bit of doubt in his head, and it worked," Kohli was quoted, as saying by ESPNcricinfo. Kohli, who scored scorching 161 and 81 in both the innings, was declared Man of the Match. He credited his success to a conscious decision of not going into a shell. "That was the plan. To have intent. It is only if you have intent that you will be able to play the ball accordingly because you are looking to play with the bat. If you don't have intent, and you are looking to control the ball, and if it does something, then you are in no position to control it. So the edges fly off and you are not in position," Kohli said. "If you are looking for runs, you defend well because your head is on the ball as well. So that was the idea to get runs as the pitch gets tougher to bat on, show intent and keep getting runs in between, extend the lead so the opposition feels the heat of those 30-40 runs," he added. With this victory, India go 1-0 up in the five-match series. The first Test had ended in a pale draw in Rajkot. The two teams will now head to Mohali where the visitors would like to come up with a better show and level the series. (ANI)